₦airaland Forum

aisha1314:
Recently converted from Christianity to being an atheist though I haven't told anyone yet. When I resume university hopefully in a matter of weeks now that ASUU strike will soon be over, I may leave a note somewhere for my mom to find about my conversion.
I feel religion is just too controlling and restrictive for me. Besides I can't even remember the last time I prayed or read the Bible so I just thought, what's the point of calling myself a Christian when I have clearly lost all my faith in God?

Don't be hasty to tell anyone about that. Other people knowing that information doesn't help you in anyway.

"Accept my love or I hurt you" is an idea we all will recoil at its thought.

If a man said to a lady, "accept my love, love me and be my girlfriend and you will be cared for, happy, everything you want will be given on to you. But if you choose not to love me, accept me or be mine, I am going to torture you and make your life miserable"

Anyone who hears the above would immediately make the man out to be a blackmailer, a horrible person, deserving of no love.

Would you say she is saved if she accepts his love? No, you won't because the person offering love is also same person offering torture should she choose the contrary.

But by Christian dogma, you could call it salvation for her to accept his love. Such abusive, blackmailing and horrifying relationship dynamics is worth celebrating by Christian sensibility because it represents Christian relationship with the Christian God.'

Christians are obsessed with the idea of salvation, of being saved from damnation. Accepting Jesus as your Lord and savior is the sure path to this salvation.

However, the Christian God also is believed by christians to be the creator of everything, the set the rules, he damns those he finds unworthy of "salvation".

Think about it. When a Christian is saying he or she is saved, they are saying they are saved by God from what God would do to them if they didn't accept God as their lord and savior

Christians are not saved from any external force beyond God's control, they are saved from the wrath of God.

How is it salvation if the same person offering salvation is responsible for damnation?

It is not, it cannot be.

Just as the abusive man above isn't offering the lady in the analogy salvation, the Christian God isn't offering anyone salvation. Both are simply blackmailing their victims with torture.

Take your time, think about it. Who exactly is God saving you from?

virginboy1:
Longest time Oga Johnny

Big man, how you dey?

MaxInDHouse:
NO!
The true God doesn't work in mystery but according to plan. So all you need to do is find out His plans in other to grasp what He is doing!

How do you find out his plan, let me guess, read the bible?

oaroloye:
SHALOM!

Dude it has been at least 5 years, you still do this?

MaxInDHouse:
He is working but it's only the humbly and those with listening ears can perceive what God is doing right before their noses!

Well, that is convenient. Another way to say the famous now obsolete "works in mysterious ways"

MrBrownJay1:
so some people with a brain actually believe in that "what god cannot do" BS?!?!?!

look around you... if that god really answered prayers then there wouldnt be so many desperate miserable people in churches. innocent children dying, innocent xtian dying everyday by the thousands, innocent people dying by thousands of natural disasters, illnesses etc

You'd be surprised how profoundly people believe that no_nsense.

Dtruthspeaker:
You are mad for saying this and the mere fact that you insult God because of this, in The Name of The Lord, your suffering shall be worse than you have ever seen. It shall not go well with you.

Here comes those who are offended for God. lol

Did God not warn you all to turn away from evil and He Would heal the land?

Did He not warn that a time cometh when you shall call but He will not Answer?

And that the world would be plunged into evil?

After all these warnings and people did not Listen to God, yet, you came to insult God for all that you suffer.

Cursed are you and cursed shall you be. No Good thing shall come your way Only Evil, as is Written "Evil purseuth Sinners"!

So, the mere fact Nigerians pray a lot and go to places that they call church, does not mean that they are people of God.

No, they are not and God can not hear their prayers after all when they were supposed to hear Him, they did not listen to Him!

Very convenient excuse to explain away why God is more concerned about healing pimples and saving bibles from burning instead of actually, you know, doing things that are relevant and necessary.

Hermes119:
long time bro

My guy! How have you been?

"What God cannot do does not exist" is a mantra that every Nigerian is familiar with due to its overuse. It however is amazing how for such confidence in the miracle of God, Nigerians who consistently don't see evidence of this keeps peddling that narrative.

In Nigeria today, there are huge social, political, infrastructural, health, security and economic problems facing the country, the solution to which borders on miracles.

Nigerians are amongst the most religious and prayerful people in the planet yet things keeps getting worse. But testimonies are given every day on how God healed pimples, how houses was razed to the ground but the bible or Koran remain untouched.

You hear the so called miracle being nothing more than a plethora of s_illy inference of supernatural intervention in the most mundane, irrelevant and unnecessary event, it is difficult to watch; while Christians are rejoicing over a dream, m_uslims are seeing the Arabic pattern of the word 'A_llah' everywhere.

There truly seem to be nothing God can do that forces people who believe in God to desperately claw to infer miracles and even in the most subtle hint of the supernatural to keep their faith alive.

Can people not think and see how the potency of their beliefs seems to hinge on the ascription of the most trivial events that can naturally occur to be evidence of the divine? That is the lowest bar there is.

A more appropriate quote would be "What God can do, does not exist."

MaxInDHouse:
According to Genesis 1:31 it was a PERFECT world!

Is the world imperfect now?

Dtruthspeaker:
Men people are so unjust and evil.

Clearly, God created a perfect world then by the doing the will of Satan, man ruined it.

But now seeing this ruin, this evil is now speaking upside down.

If the world had a potentiality to be ruined, that in itself is an imperfection of state. Hence, God couldn't have possibly created a perfect world. If God created a perfect world, such a world would have no potentiality to be ruined. It remains unchangingly perfect.

seguno2:
Hindus and Buddhists are quite violent in their own territories. They are not so relevant to us in Nigeria, compared with Christianity and Islam.

Exactly just as Islam is not as relevant as Christianity in southern Nigeria where these atheists are mostly from.

Get it?

seguno2:
You don’t think the greater violence of Muslims count

Not necessarily, that would mean Hindus or Buddhists are just as violent because as you know they don't get shit on as much too.

Atheists who were once muslims seem to be anti-Islam more

Nairaman001:
On this “official”” day of celebration all around the world, I would like to pose a question to all the “atheists” in the house, Are y’all atheists or anti Christian?

I mean I notice that most atheists in their arguments seem to be negatively biased against Christianity and not really the whole concept of God, Allah, Buddha etc .

Note: when I say Antichristian I don’t mean Muslims, Buddhists etc, but I mean like atheists, you get?

Note: Don’t be a close minded to what I asked there is a real difference between an atheist and an anti Christian

I think the reason most atheist you interact with seem to focus chiefly on the judeochristian faith is because they once were under the judeochristian faith and Christianity has more influence around them than any other religion.

They don't need to argue against Muslim deity or Vishnu as these deities are of no consequence to their immediate sphere of influence.

The Bible is littered with instances of God showing favoritism.

In fact, the whole basis of thy judeochristian faith stems fundamentally from the idea of God's favoritism

OtemAtum:
can you elucidate please?

Here are his basic assumptions

"This is an hypothetical situation,
A man, Let's say Mr A, was able to somehow lay hold on a nuke that could destroy all humanity at a bottom, and he is determined to detonate"

This whole post was built fundamentally on the above assumption, so its answer does not lie in trying to rationalize how else the problem can be solved. The assumptions he presented only gave one option, convince the nuke man otherwise, no other.

You must answer within that given premise, anything else simply is missing the point. It is a hypothetical assumption that doesn't require you to rationalize more than the information and assumptive parameters it presents.

Steep:
Now, here is a challenge for atheists.

This is an hypothetical situation,
A man, Let's say Mr A, was able to somehow lay hold on a nuke that could destroy all humanity at a bottom, and he is determined to detonate it. How would you persuade such a person not to do it. Mind you he believes
1. There is no God neither any punishment for sins and misdeeds.
2 He believes the universe or multiverse is nothing else but ever changing forms of energies/energy.
3. Morality or what's not are all evolutionary construct to make so called higher organism to think life is special in other for organism like humans to continue to propagate.
4. Since love, hatred, good evil are all product of subatomic interactions, there is nothing really evil or good other than that that is determine by fundamental forces of nature.

How would you convince such a man not to push that button?

There are fundamental flaws in your assumptions about morality as held by atheists. You have to first understand that the idea of morality as a God-centered enterprise is majorly an Abrahamic idea, at least in the modern sense. Most cultures developed moral values and ideas without basing these ideas of the authority of God punishing or rewarding certain actions.

So, someone not believing in God is not mutually exclusive with them having firm moral beliefs.

I do not know what you mean by good and evil being products of subatomic interactions, I am hoping you will explain that further

But here is how I will try convincing such a person: I will appeal to their rationality, practicality and curiosity.

1. Rationality: Detonating the nuke serves no purpose to him, so what would it matter to him to detonate it?
2. Practical: He has family members, friends whom I assume he deeply cares about. Why would he want to remove the choice to either live or die from those whom he confesses to love?
3. Curiosity: Assuming that such a person is a nihilist as your post seems to imply, even a nihilist can be curious. We have both seen the scientific wonders, architectural and technological marvels human has been capable of in the last century, wouldn't you like to find out where it is all going? What comes next? Perhaps, you could hold off nuking everyone just yet.

So now OP, assuming this person believes in a God but is determined to nuke everyone, how would you convince them otherwise?

OtemAtum:
I am not an atheist but let me find an answer to your question. First of all, this is a global scenario and it's only by the efforts of scientists that such a nuke can be neutralised. Therefore the scientists will work on something that will make it impossible to detonate. We have missiles and anti-missiles. It's only in Africa that people will be begging such person in fear not to do it. In advanced nations, they will work out things that will make it impossible to work. Was it Iraq that year that claimed to be having weapon of mass destruction, I don't think anybody begged them, rather, advanced nations worked on their counter-weapons and got themselves ready.

So if I were to be an atheist and someone somewhere is claiming to have something that can destroy the whole world, I will not persuade the person not to do it, rather I will laugh over it and tell him to "do it and let's see'.

That's how some religious gods have been threatening us that they are capable of ending the world for more than 2000 years now and till date, they don't know how to go about it. Mtchew.

This comment goes way off the provisions of the fundamental assumptions the post is built on.

Tetehjewels:
My Son is super smart and at 8 has already been given double promotion twice in school. The 1st one he got was in the 2nd term of that year and he was only able to join the new class in their 3rd term yet he still came first and the school thought it necessary to move him again. So he is now in a class with kids 3yrs older than he is and already besting them too.

We are a very God loving family and even though I have never sat my son down to talk to him about God, I do ensure he goes to Church with me and joins me in my daily morning devotions. I do notice that he has an extremely inquisitive mind and would rather watch educational channels on DStv than cartoons especially since they stopped showing his best cartoon "Goku"

So we have this neighbour who is from Greece. His 7 yr old son and my son can be considered best of friends and they visit each other at will. So on this day he came to visit and while they were hanging out I suddenly heard them arguing from his room. Normally their arguments would be over a video game or something else but this one was interesting. They were arguing about God!

I stood by the door and listened. Apparently that day revealed to me that my neighbour is an atheist but I never knew and he has been indoctrinating his 7yr old son along those lines because I clearly heard the boy say to my Son, "God does not exist, he is just a story"

So here is the convo

Him: God is not real, He does not exist, He is just a story

My Son: Ethan what did you say?

Him: God is not real, He is just like Santa who also isn't real

My Son: How do you know he isn't real?

Him: Well my dad said he isn't real because he just isn't. Have you seen him?

My Son: So your dad says God isn't real because he hasn't seen him? So something isn't real because you can't see it? But what about feeling Him?

Him: Feelings are not something we can um um fully determine because they can be misleading

My Son: How can you say Feelings are misleading, you are my friend right? (He goes yeah?) So how are you sure you are my friend if your feelings can be misleading. Can you say your feelings misled you into being my friend?

Him: No that's not what I was trying to say

My Son cuts him off with a sharp tone: So if your feelings did not mislead you into being my friend how then do feelings mislead you?

Him: Have you felt God before?

My Son: No but I do know that I think about him a lot

Him: umm umm but How would you possibly be thinking about something that does not exist

My Son: Exactly Ethan!

At this point I step into the room and cheerfully say Okay guys playtime is over (because I needed to stop the argument and get my Son to study by asking his friend to go home)

However his final comment "Exactly Ethan" resonated with me and made me think that comment was actually directed at Ethan's dad and not Ethan because apparently he had been talking about the non existence of God to his Son A LOT!

So how do you constantly talk or think about Something or Someone that doesn't exist?


cc Mynd44 Lalasticlala OAM4J

In what planet did your son win the argument? First, your son tried to establish feeling as a basis for God's existence, committing the first blunder of mistaking emotions to somehow infer objective existence of an entity.

Then even though your son tried to establish feelings as a basis for the existence of God, he also agreed he never felt God but rather thinks about God a lot, how on earth is thinking about something a pointer that it exists in reality?

Thinking only alludes to conceptual existence not actual.

Example: Dragons does not exist because we think about them a lot, Captain America do not exist because we think of him a lot, the avengers do not exist because they awake intense emotions (feelings) in us whenever we read about their fictitious heroic deeds in comics or movies.

Conceptually, these fictitious ideas exist, in reality, they do not.

Your son strawmaned the other kids argument, based his on a faulty premise and just talked over the other kid.

There is absolutely nothing smart about your fictitious son, bring out your arguments proudly instead of trying to heap them on an eight year old that exists only in your imaginations.

Righteousness2:
This is not luck! This can Only be the Hand of the ALMIGHTY GOD !

God had nothing to do with it.

HellVictorinho3:
Is it about the size of HellVictorinho or the capacity of his brain

Actually it can be. How well can an ant understand the purpose of a solar panel?

Now how would you understand the purpose of the cosmos if there is one?

DeepSight:
Its not just evasive, it is ridiculous.

I swear. I think I am going to pass the guy. He keeps making these conclusive statement without actually justifying any of them.

HellVictorinho3:
I am talking about the movement of the things that make up the universe.


Physics can't change that.

The movement of things that make up the universe are subject to physical laws. They all fall into that physical behavioral uniformity.

The movement of things that make up the universe literally allude to a pattern, otherwise known as the laws of physics. Referring to them really is you making my point.

wirinet:
You are talking like Einstein when he posited "God does not play dice with the universe". He had since been proved to be wrong, as Niels Bohr's quantum theory (randomness) rules on the subatomic scale. No one can predict the future of the universe. All we have are speculations.

I see. Quantum particles may be probabilistic from the human vantage point, this doesn't erode the truth that the macro universe follows well known laws.

We can in fact predict the universe well enough to know when the next solar eclipse will happen, if an asteroid is on a collision course with another object, when the next lunar eclipse will occur, the next season in Mars, how a star should behave around a blackhole.

We can predict that adding 1 mole of hydrogen with 2 mole of oxygen will give you water.

Humans can predict the behavior of the macro universe with pin point accuracy because there is a pattern, there is an order they follow, if this order do not exist, there won't be such a thing as physics or chemistry, or any study about natural science.

The universe is indeed a very random, violent and mysterious place. With stars and galaxies colliding, black holes swallowing up whole galaxies, exploding stars with enough energy to affect the whole galaxy, and then there is the issue of dark energy and matter which makes up over 95% of the observable universe.

LOL. This is like pointing at collapsing building, car crashes, as evidence that human cities or automobile networks are random. They are not. These things you are referring to actually points to the fact that patterns eventually intersect.

That car crashes happen from time to time, or plane crashes, or train derail or ships sinking does not suggest transportation traffic is a random process.

I know there might be a few planet out there capable of sustaining life, but I doubt there would be many. Why? Because the conditions for life is so narrow and specific that it can only be present in a highly limited number of stars and planets. For example, the star must be of a certain size and stability to allow life start and evolve, the star must be at a certain distance from its star to allow water exist in 3 states (Water is essential for life) ,the orbit of the planet must not be too eccentric to allow narrow range of temperatures, the planet must have an iron core and be rotating to produce magnetic shield to protect against radiation and high energy particles from its sun. These conditions are numerous and without just one of these conditions being met life cannot start.
Even if we have a few million planets capable of sustaining life, that is still a huge waste of resources considering there are trillions of galaxies each with trillions of suns.

Again, you are actually the one assuming limits for the universe by trying to box into what you assume must be the limit from your own thought. We know life on earth need water, doesn't mean life elsewhere must. That life on earth is carbon based doesn't mean life elsewhere must be.

Take for instance oxygen, you would say that life needs oxygen but it actually doesn't, at a point, oxygen was extremely toxic to life on earth and has been responsible for a large scale extinction event.

You cannot make a blanket claim about the nature of life based on your experience of life on earth, that is a bold claim for someone with only 1 sample size.

As carl Sagan put it, Life can happen anywhere, we cannot limit the possibilities based on our earthly sample size. There could be life even on Jupiter or Saturn, or Neptune. sure these planets do not possess the specific conditions of earth that can give rise to human life but one thing we know about life is that it evolves to fit into the conditions available.

[On another note, I found this interesting, you are positing that life need specific conditions to occur, indirectly alluding to a universal pattern while still arguing that the universe is random. This is not important but I found it rather ironic]

I agree with you that the solar system has stabilized over time and the giant planets, mostly jupiter takes the hits for us. Still I agree with HellVictorinho3 that the earth might have been hit by life eliminating impacts in the past that must has destroyed all of life, and life had to start all over again. There is a theory known as the Giant-impact hypothesis, whereby it is postulated that our moon was created as a result of a huge object colliding with the earth, and breaking a chunk off.

Like I mentioned above, instances of collisions does not erode the presence of a pattern, it simply points to pattern intersect.

The universe follows sets of physical laws - true.
these laws acting on different bodies can lead to intersection? - True.

Therefore, these intersection does not refute the presence of this pattern anymore than car crashes refute the orderliness of traffic.

HellVictorinho3:
Evading stupid questions........ that's necessary.



Justify


To who??



If you think the universe has a purpose,say that purpose.

I have not mentioned whether I think the universe has a purpose or not.

You are the one who claimed it doesn't have a purpose.

So, I am asking how you arrived at that conclusion.

I am asking if you'd know the universe has a purpose if it indeed does have one?

I mean work me through the thought process that led you to conclude the universe has no purpose.

DeepSight:
Whilst this is true, you will find that there is much on the Earth that strongly suggests many human civilizations have been wiped out in the past - and likely in several instances by natural or cosmic events. Mainstream history as currently taught leaves much to be desired.

Recorded history which does not reach beyond 6 - 10 thousand years is as a nano second in the spectrum of the total lost history of mankind.

This is interesting, could you point me to some of these Civilizations so I can read up on them?

HellVictorinho3:
It means don't ask certain questions

or you'd evade. Lol.

How about, don't make problematic statements you can't even justify, that's a better idea ��‍♂️

HellVictorinho3:
Well, the universe involves randomness, anyway.

What part of the universe is random? Do you know the very existence of the laws of physics infers order, a pattern that governs how things in the universe behaves.

Anyway, what part of the universe is subject to randomness?

HellVictorinho3:
How would I not know its purpose if there were one


DeepSight

This is awfully evasive. Lol

HellVictorinho3:
Who predicted the future of the universe

Well, the universe is a group of things that exist anyhow possible...


Studying the universe doesn't make the universe amazing... neither does it make it something with a purpose..

I mentioned neither purpose nor amazing in that comment.

HellVictorinho3:
The universe has no purpose...

How would you know its purpose if there were one?